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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Thursday, June 26, 2008

you have to share your own birthday cake. With a boy.

(Yeah, I'm taking Ashley's side. Why? Because a) she likes Disney stuff, b) she's enduring what I'm assuming must be a sports logo on her birthday cake, and c) she's a girl. But mostly the Disney thing.)

I like the unintentional irony of having Eeyore on the cake, though.A glum donkey for a glum-ass cake - it's quite appropriate. Still, I have a few questions:

1) Since the "Eagles" logo is blue, why is the icing green?2) Can anyone see the colors green & purple together and NOT think of either Mardi Gras or the Joker?3) How come Glen gets his name capitalized, but not Ashley?4) Did anyone else first read this as "Happy ashley Birthday Glen"?5) Doesn't Glen's side look bigger? Hey, I think it IS bigger. Mo-oooommm!!!

Personally, I thought it was a computer mistake at first. Like they just run cakes through a machine on a conveyor belt and this one was put in improperly, which would explain why they need a computer to do all the icing if the decorator couldn't handle that one small task.

1) The part of the logo that is blue is usually black, and the Eagles team color is teal (like the background on the logo). So maybe mixing the icing color with the logo color would be about right.

2) Yes.

3) A cursive capital 'A' is a lot like a lowercase capital 'A'. Give them the benefit of a doubt!

4) I didn't.

5) That's funny. Maybe I'm just seeing this from a male point of view, but the first thing I saw was that both "Happy" and "Ashley" were encroaching on Glen's side of the cake. Five yard penalty, repeat first down.

I am sure they are twins, & that the boy's favorite color is green - he doesn't have to like the same color his team uses, right? And the "sizes" of the halves have to do with the sizes of the images used. Mom wasn't being cheap - she was trying not to have a huge amount of cake leftover.

Seriously, this isn't half as bad as some of the other ones I've seen, here or elsewhere.

Yes, but why is the word "Happy" written in blue? Alll by it's lonesome. Tales of things to come for our dear lower er...case ashley? And I am NOT fooled by that side trim trying to make it look like Glen only got half! Liar...LI-AR!

This is a typical Eagles fan cake. No surprise here. Screwed up beyond belief. That poor little girl that not only had to SHARE the cake, with what I hope is a sibling, but had to have an Eagles Logo on half of her cake. That's adding insult to injuryYour's Truly,-A Redskins Fan

By the icing border, the cake is divided evenly, but the pictures are different sizes. The mother likely just brought in a couple pictures and the cake decorator, as a halfway decent customer service person, said "Okay, I will do exactly what you ask" and thought "Even if it will look like $#!}." A better customer service person would have talked to the mother and suggested that the images be arranged so as to divide the cake more evenly, and perhaps obtain a better picture of the eagles logo so as to show team colours. An excellent customer service person would have asked if there was any one single thing both children liked so they could still share a cake, but one that didn't look like, well, this.

This post was hilarious. It made me laugh so hard. I don't think some people understand the purpose of the site though. It's not to find logical excuses for why these cakes are so ugly. It's to make fun and pity the people the cakes were intended for! I don't care if the kids were twins; it's just cheap and ugly!

Poor kids are probably twins. I'm lucky I also share my gender with my twin.... The mother of these poor kiddo's probably decided to save money by buying only one cake. Was their birthday Eeyore/Eagles themed, too?

I think it's a cursive A. My mother writes our last name like that, but it's awfully tiny here. I heard that logos and stuff like that, especially blue icing, makes you sick. It happened to our neighbor - he puked it ALL up.

Considering how much Eagles fans suffer (year after year) I find it quite appropriate for sad, pessimistic Eeyore to be paired with the Eagles logo. E-A-G-L --- oh never mind-- there's always next year. Go Phils!

My mom did this one year. My birthday is in July, my brother's was in August. NATURALLY we could celebrate them on the same day in August, since....well, it's only 32 days apart, right? Practically the same MONTH.

Unfortunately, as one of those grocery store cake decorators, I had to do several of these "split cakes".

My favorite was when a customer wanted "My Little Pony" on one half (picture rolling hills, flowers, and a rainbow) and Harley Davison on the other (motorcyle and gigantic orange flames). It looked like Pony was about to thrust into Hell.

A friend of mine just told me about your site... I'm laughing, and almost crying at other times. I was a cake decorator for many years, and I kid you not, I had many orders of parents doubling up on one cake. In at least once case, I have had to split them 3 or more ways! I knew some of these folks and it usually isn't just a monetary deal... it's because they're being that cheap.I could tell you horror stories about customers. And coworkers. Believe me.. there is nothing more horrifying than when you come back from the weekend, and find out the most illiterate bakery employee has been playing with your equipment. Keep up the good work! This site is great ;)

I just found this blog, but I am hooked! I was surfing the net after finding out the Harry Potter movie is pushed back by a year and needed a laugh. I have laughed so hard I had tears coming from my eyes!

My brothers and I all have birthdays within 14 days of each other. We have shared parties, but not cakes. THANK YOU MOM! I think poor little ashley (No caps for her!) could use a new home.

Having been born on the same day as my brother (5 years difference), I know all about sharing cakes, so that was never a big deal for me. However, my mom never tried to do anything like this. We usually had some kind of "ordinary" cake with our names in pink and blue icing.

Would it have really been that much more expensive to just get 2 smaller cakes? Classic...

With regard to the Mardi Gras wiki link:

While I'm sure Alabamans just love their Fat Tuesday celebration, Mobile isn't exactly the first place that pops to mind when someone mentions Mardi Gras. Of course, as a New Orleans native, I'm a bit biased...

I don't particularly see anything wrong with sharing a cake, whether it's for financial reasons, or to cut down on leftovers, or whatever.

But why, why, WHY would you do it like this? I'm horrified that so many people have responded saying they've gotten similar requests. Why not choose a single design that would be appropriate for both children?

(Alternatively, would it really have cost that much more to get two cakes each half the size of that one?)

The execution was poor, but don't knock the concept. I completely get how it happened. The commenter who suggested that a single compromise theme be used can't possibly have kids the age of these. Moreover, why should they have to compromise just because they have the same birthday? Kids have a pretty high tackiness threshold. In fact, tacky very frequently makes them happier than aesthetic excellence.

And budget conscious mom was only going to buy one cake and wasn't going to break the bank on that one. So good Mom! You may try something else next time, but you did fine.

As far as getting a smaller cake, cakes cannot be sold smaller than a 1/4 sheet at most grocery stores. if the mom had opted for two 8" round cakes, though, the difference in price would have been a little less than $5, or if she'd gotten two single-layer round cakes, it would have been about the same price for the same number of servings, though admittedly less cake overall.

I wouldn't blame the decorator for any of the things you mentioned. For all we know, the customer could have requested green for the writing/piping to complement the colors of the team. Also, in true cursive, the upper case A looks like just a bigger version of the lower case, so yes, her name is capitalized. And finally, the "boy" side is bigger due to the proportions of the logo. If you made them the same size, one of the images would be distored. I'm all for making fun of bad cakes, but don't blame the decorator for mistakes they didn't have any control over.

Aww... I used to have to put up with these birthday cake shenanigans when I was a kid because my brothers birthday was 2 days after mine. Cuz it was so hard or expensive to just make a second cake and bring it out on his birthday?

I am still traumatized by the birthday cake my brother and I shared one year. My side was white with pink accents and a beautiful ballerina on it. His half was brown and green with G.I.Joe on it. Our birthdays are a day apart, so we ate his half one day and mine the next. Not only did I have to have green and brown traces left on my cake-mine was a day old! I still tease my mother about 23 years later.

I shared a cake once! I'm a twin, and after years of sharing a single cake (and a lot of other things), I was glad we at least got our own halves. My sister had the Little Mermaid, and I had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I loved it!

I think the sides are about equal, except that Glen's picture runs into Ashley's side. The least that could have been done was continue the "border" down the middle to at least give the illusion of two cakes sitting beside each other.

Eh, my little brother and I have the same birthday, and we share cakes all the time. It's usually not a big deal. Though it probably helps that despite the 9-year-gap, we have similar interests.Our mum solved the problem of different flavours (he likes chocolate, I'm a carrot cake fiend) beautifully last year though by doing a chocolate Pac-Man eating white carrot cake "dots."

My name is Grace D. and I have had a personal experiance with split cakes. For my ninth birthday, my friend and neighbor (not even my best friend, he lived down the street, and our birthdays were a month apart) had a double birthday party. I'm pretty sure it was our mothers' way of saving a bit of cash (or ruining my party), but they did splurg on one of those blow-up jumpy room things. My friends mother made the cake and put her present to me on it. at the time it was awesome, but back then I didn't have any scruples about licking icing off of a hello kitty jewerly box. that was the them of my half by the way, hello kitty. My friends half was hot wheels themed. It was a nice memory, and I still laugh when I think of my friend's face when he saw hello kitty driving the little hot wheels car.

Why is this addressed to a "mom"? What makes you think girls can't be just as sporty as boys? Your post also reinforces incorrect, gender stereotypes. Also, I didn't read the cake as "Happy Ashley Birthday Glen" at all. But, that's just me...and some other commenters.

Oh, yuck! That's what... a 1/2 sheet I am guessing here? So why didn't mom and dad just get two 1/4 sheet cakes and let these poor kids have their own cakes? I know that can get pricey but geesh- it's only once a year!

I can't tell you the number of times people have ordered cakes like this. Our bakery charged extra for photos like that. So... basically... she paid extra for a crappy looking cake. and that amazing gel writing? wow...

p.s. I read this blog to make sure none of my cakes show up on here!! so far so good ;)

When I was 5 years old, I had to share a cake with a boy in my year at school. I didn't even like this boy at all, but because our birthday was in the same week, our moms liked the idea of having a party for the two of us. The cake wasn't even that big, but I think I had Jasmine from Aladdin on my side of the cake, and I can't even remember what he had on his side of the cake. Needless to say, sharing a cake with someone you're not related to, much less like, is not fun at all. I sincerely hope these two are twins so sharing the cake would make sense. I'm going to have to search around my old photos to see if I still have a picture of my old cake.

I think that the conjoined-cake is lame. I share my birthday with my mother and her older sister. My Nana, when she was alive, made birthday cakes each year for everybody's birthday. As my mother, aunt and I shared a birthday this meant that she would make us each our own cake that is right she made 3 medium sized cakes every year for the 3 April 13th birthday girls. Likewise when they were growing up, they are three years apart, she would make them each their own cake. Now I know that money is tight with the global recession so I can understand the cost and the too much cake left over that goes into the trash concern of the mom. However, while I do not think that the Ashley will be scarred for life by this I think that the cake decorator could have done the logical thing and charged the mother for the one large cake that she ordered and then, before icing it cut it in half but that is just me.

I have twins. They have shared a cake a couple of years; one year the girl wanted princesses and the boy wanted swords so I made a huge castle cake and got a dragon pinata. Other than that, they have always had separate cakes. It's bad enough that I usually make them share a party. This cake would make them cry.

I can see that twins, being used to sharing everything else, wouldn't mind too much about sharing a birthday cake too. Different twins could have something to say about it, though. The custom of having theme-decorated cakes becomes a big issue in that case, since two different designs on the same cake look from bad to awfully ugly.With that cake, the smart thing to do could have been to turn the Eagles logo so it would fit better, and NOT use transparent jelly as ink for the text (aside from cutting it in two at home so they wouldn't clash so much).

>> 2) Can anyone see the colors green & purple together and NOT think of either Mardi Gras or the Joker?For me, it's either Sam Raimi's Joker, or the Eva-01.

>> 3) How come Glen gets his name capitalized, but not Ashley?The size of the letter it's pretty ambiguous.

>> 4) Did anyone else first read this as "Happy ashley Birthday Glen"?No, I actually read it in the right order. But I wondered for a moment if the names were "Wiley" and "Ilen", that sounded pretty weird.

hey i know that team! i go to clover high and my cousin was playing on the team when they one the championship, the entire town went to the game. (not joking) i guess that glen and ashley may be twins and that might be why they're sharing a cake, also, only about ten people in clover weren't obsessed with winning so ashley may have wanted the logo too.

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